This week, on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the crew takes a crack at the first Deluxe Edition of Vertigo Comics Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan.
From the Wiki:
In the series, on July 17, 2002, something (referred to as a plague) simultaneously kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome — including embryos, fertilized eggs, and even sperm. The only exceptions appear to be Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, and his Capuchin monkey, Ampersand.
As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.
Here’s your chance to be heard on the show! Give us your thoughts on Rising Stars, or if you want to share your thoughts on the state of the comic book industry, or anything else that might be on your mind drop us a line. Only the most awesome comments (good or bad) make it on the show, so get your stuff to us right away!
We record the new show Tuesday night, so make sure you have your contribution to us by 5:00 PM CST Tuesday evening.
12 Comments
about time.
i have nothing to say other than reading the entire series in one sitting is quite an experience.
Wow… Where do I begin?
What seems at first glance to be a pervasive male fantasy, turns into a story of depth, suspense and action at every corner. Seeing all the issues of cloning and challenging mortality being brought up is truly a mind provoking experience.
This series also has more than it’s fair share of “holy s#!t,” moments. From seeing the plague take effect in the first issue to the tragedy with 355 in the climax, there is no way to be bored in this series.
Oh, and did I mention that Yorick is one of the most interesting and thought provoking characters in the history of comics? I didn’t think I needed to.
If your one of the people that hasn’t read this series yet… well, good job. Now you don’t need to wait through any of the agonizing waits between issues that the rest of us did.
Yeah pretty much what those guys said… Also i think this series might have been my: You werent there maaaan!
I remember reading this in single issues as it came out, caught it from issue 1, and it was just cliffhanger after cliffhanger. A fantastic & thought provoking series, and the issue 12 cliffhanger (which I assume is the end of the 1st deluxe volume), has to be one of the most jaw droppingly brilliant twists of the series. I gave a friend of mine looking to get into comics the 1st 6 issues recently, and he is hooked. Hes picked up the 1st 4 trades and I doubt he’ll be disappointed.
In fact the only thing that can sully the good name of this series is SHIA!!!! Id much prefer the guy from Brick to get the role.
Caught it in trade after being away from comics for a short period. A friend recommended it and an associate lent me all the trades. All I can say is WOW – this is one of the reasons I have fallen off the wagon and am feeding my comic book addiction.
From here I jumped to Ex Machina and Runaways and have become Brian K’s bitch.
Good to know that he’s on board and writing the scripts for the Y- the last man and Runaways movies.
It’s funny timing. I’ve been reading the trades off and on for a year and just finished volume 10 this past weekend. The end is much sadder than I anticipated and more complex.
This is one of the best start-to-finish series in comics, capes or not. As others have said, the cliffhangers are great and I find the plot twists very interesting and the characterization pretty great (though I do think the dialog can be a little over the top in its pop culture references). It’s also a funny book, as in actual laugh out loud, which is not something you can say about most comics.
I do think this will stand the test of time and be one of those titles that people talk about in 10-15 years as “you have to read this if you’re into comics.”
Y:TLM is up there with Watchmen as my favourite comic series.
It has beautiful writing for the most part (with 60 issues, the writing has to get clunky at times, e.g. Yorick’s tomato juice episode) and great characterisation, it has especially great variety in the female characters (well, admittedly, there aren’t that many male figures ;) ).
Comic fans will like some allusions to comic history, while newbies will still find the story accessible. I even introduced a female friend of mine who did not read comics at all to the series and got her interest in the “new” art form up.
The very last panel of the series is beautiful, but one of my favourite moments was when Yorick reminisces about his story and says something along the lines of “Nothing major, just some robots, ninjas, pirates and monkeys.”
I only then realized that all those characters where in the story but I didn’t notice that outright because they were so well embedded in it.
Me in 1999: “I wonder what it would be like if only me and my good friends survived some terrible catastrophe.”
Me in 2003: “I remember that weird idea I had when I was 9.” (Goes Into Public Library) “Brian K Vaughn, eh? Let’s see…ah, crap.”
Me in 2005: “My idea involved children and teenagers only! I can still make it work! I’ll just make some hurried scribbled notes and plot ideas!”
Me in late 2008: “Hmm…’FreakAngels’, eh? I had no idea Ellis was going into webcomics. I’ll give it a try…Ah, F**k!”
I have GOT to start writing things down sooner.
All I can say is… “And I liked it!” =)
This story really has so many things you can praise it for..which makes complimenting it a very complicated ordeal. But one thing i gotta point out…Y is one of those stories with a very easy to explain concept..its very pitch-y..yet the execution of it is actually much better than the concept. You dont see a lot of stories with a concept like this without feeling it could have been done better or having a …”why didnt they do this” moment, you just dont feel that with Y….And the then theres the art and characterzation, and the plotting and the dialogue and all of the details and research…and overall idea..and the laughs and the deaths and the…
ITS JUST SOOO GOOOOD!
My favorite comic. Ever.
I read it in one sitting, goo thing I did, I would have gone mad if I had had to wait a month to know what happens next…
I was asked to describe it once, this the best I could do: “a Stephen King movie adaptation written and directed by Joss Whedon” It had scary end of the world stuff mixed with laughs, drama, love, religion, philosophy, science, great characters and witty dialogues.